Tammy Duckworth Questions Assistant Secretary Of State Nominee About His Past Work In Thailand

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At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) questioned Michael DeSombre, nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State.

Transcript

00:00ah senator you're up thank you mr chairman ambassador de sombre thank you for coming to

00:05speak with me in my office yesterday i'll jump right in to follow up with our conversation

00:11if confirmed it will be your responsibility to fight for the people and programs under eap

00:16and based on your past experience in the business world and as ambassador to thailand i think you

00:20will be very well positioned to do so we talked about how your experience in bangkok gives you

00:26particularly good insight into the value of the interagency presence in the region can you

00:31elaborate a little bit on some of your positive examples of leveraging that interagency effectively

00:36like the us tda the ic law enforcement and how you'd like to empower our missions in the region

00:42to continue that work senator thank you very much for the question again thank you for making yourself

00:47and your staff available to meet yesterday and also for obviously your support last time when i was up

00:52for nomination i appreciate that as well um yeah the the nature of our presence overseas is is very

00:59important and the interagency aspect of that can be very valuable uh some examples in thailand for

01:03example we have the international law enforcement academy in thailand and very significant law enforcement

01:08cooperation in various different arms of both the thai law enforcement but also regional law enforcement

01:13that come to thailand to train at the ilia academy is a great example of ways that we can increase

01:19connectivity and also promote more appropriate law activities by and you know by by police officers

01:25and and law enforcement agencies um on the economic front uh from the deal team perspective i use with

01:31ustda quite substantially particularly on the lines of effort on infrastructure and aerospace and defense

01:37and ways that we could get uh you know studies done that could show the feasibility of various different

01:43projects and i mean there's the list goes on and on there's lots of things that we can do together

01:48and i believe that that will be my role in eap to really make sure that we do that in all the

01:52countries around eap thank you um similarly there's an actually a quite a sizable american population

01:59throughout uh the asia pacific region folks who need access to u.s citizen services and american

02:04businesses who are trying to operate on a level playing field in the region how do you quantify the

02:10value of retaining an active presence across this large region and the economic value of business deals

02:15that are facilitated by our embassies and consulates i mean basically how do we make sure that our

02:19foreign service professionals are given credit for the work they do that directly contributes to

02:23american prosperity senator it's a very good question and clearly the safety and security of americans

02:29overseas is one of the top priority of the state department and ensuring that they have sufficient

02:32access to uh consular services and others is critically important and is something that we need to

02:37ensure happens obviously some countries are more densely populated and have more americans than others and so

02:44where we have those services is something that we obviously need to to look at from time to time

02:49but uh i definitely believe that that's important both in terms of the services for the american

02:54citizens but also for promoting the commercial activities of american businesses in those countries

02:58as well thank you um touching on another issue related to our nation's prosperity a real economic issue

03:04that impacts folks here at home although they may not all realize the connection is the prevalence of

03:09these cyber scam centers that are targeting americans a lot of them are originating throughout southeast

03:14asia can you talk about what types of existing authorities you can use to help address this issue if

03:19confirmed and any actions we can take on a multilateral or bilateral basis senator thank you very much i

03:25i am very much aware of those cyber scams obviously the countries of particularly burma cambodia and lao

03:30are where many of them occur i understand that over 10 billion dollars has been lost of cyber scams by u.s

03:36citizens so you're absolutely correct this is a critical issue and something we need to try to

03:40address and something i will if confirmed look into the the best way of addressing it we clearly have

03:46ability to go after individuals that are violating your laws and and be able to do that obviously

03:52sometimes that may not have great effect if they're in a country that we i can't do anything about

03:55them while they're there but i think in those countries for example greater in cooperation in the law

04:03enforcement area so they can improve their capacity to enforce their laws because in many circumstances

04:07these are happening either with or without the consent or approval of the relevant country they're

04:12happening there and sometimes increasing law enforcement cooperation to increase capacity could be

04:16one way that we might think about addressing it thank you look the united states is a pacific nation

04:22people forget that um and the ap is full of critical allies and partners i hope to see that reflected

04:27in how we prioritize our engagement and empower our people overseas if you're confirmed i hope you and i can

04:32work together to make that happen through strong coordination and collaboration between the executive

04:36and legislative branches and i hope that you'll make yourself available to me in my office as uh once

04:40you're confirmed senator duckworth thank you very much for that and i definitely uh will intend to

04:45cooperate with this committee on all matters and i agree completely that eap is a priority region and i think uh

04:50as has been stated i mean china is the pacing threat and we need to address that thank you are you're back mr chairman

04:56thank you mr chairman and uh congratulations gentlemen on your nominations um mr pratt let me start with you um

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